Catholic Education Week is such a special time in the year as we celebrate all the wonderful things that are highlighted as a Catholic College.   

Catholic Education Week events in our College 

We began our week in prayer with our College Mass with Fr Jim.  The theme of the week is ‘Communities of Faith, Hope and Love’.  To begin the mass students brought forward branches to create a tree, these branches were filled with the names and hopes of all in our College community, including staff and students.  This tree will be on display in the foyer for the next few weeks. 

On Wednesday to say thanks to our staff for their dedication to our College, our senior students cooked them a delicious breakfast.  The BBQ bacon and eggs was amazing and the coffee from the café was a great start to the day.  It was lovely to slow down as a staff and just take time to have a meal together.  The rich conversations amongst staff reflected for me how blessed I am to have such dedicated and caring colleagues.   

Today our Year 11 students led short retreats with our Prep – Year 4 students.  The Year 11 students have been working on these since last term and today they get to put their preparation into action.  There are four phases to a retreat  

Part 1 - Gather includes Icebreaker & Theme focus 

Part 2 - Story 

Part 3 - Activity and Response 

Part 4 - Ritual and Sending Forth 

Altogether these four parts give participants the opportunity to listen to others, learn from others, reflect and pray.  It is the aim through this experience that all involved, participants and leaders learn from each other and have fun together. 

Tomorrow we round out Catholic Education Week with a School Free day for students whilst all of our staff gather together in Toowoomba for Bishop’s Inservice Day.  On Bishop’s Inservice Day our staff gather with all other Toowoomba and regional schools from our Diocese for a day of fellowship and professional learning.  This is the only time in the school year where we get to gather as a full staff with all other diocesan schools in the proximity of Toowoomba, it is a great time to reconnect with past staff and meet new people.  We are looking forward to hearing from our new Bishop, Ken Howell this year.   

GRANDPARENTS DAY  

Don’t forget to let your grandparents know that our annual Grandparent’s Day has been expanded for 2023 and will encompass all year levels from Prep to Year 12.  It will be a big morning at the College on Friday 15 September.   

NAPLAN reports 

The College has received students NAPLAN reports for students in Year 3, 5, 7, 9.  These reports will be distributed via students next week.  NAPLAN reports will be accompanied by information regarding the new proficiency standards and how to read and under these reports. 

Some important points to remember when looking at NAPLAN results: 

• The tests complement school assessments of literacy and numeracy. 
• The student report in conjunction with other forms of assessment contributes to a balanced view of student achievement. 
• The paper tests contain questions of varying difficulty to cover a broad range of student abilities. Because of this, there are some questions that most students answered correctly, and some that only a few students answered correctly. 
• The online tests for Reading, Conventions of language and Numeracy use tailored testing. For more information on tailored testing, see the nap.edu.au website. 
• NAPLAN tests are written with reference to the content descriptors for Australian Curriculum: English and Australian Curriculum: Mathematics (www.australiancurriculum.edu.au). 
• Only some aspects of literacy (Grammar and punctuation, Writing and Reading) and numeracy (Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics and Probability) are assessed. 
• A student’s writing result is based on first-draft writing. 
• The information about each student’s performances is confidential and is known only to the student themselves, and their parents/carers, the teacher and the school. 
• The student’s performances may be compared with ACARA’s national minimum standard for that cohort. 
• Information for parents/carers on interpreting their child’s report is available on the nap.edu.au website. 

New proficiency standards in NAPLAN 

From 2023, new standards were introduced to NAPLAN reporting. This reporting replaces the previous numerical  NAPLAN reporting bands and national minimum  standards. Education ministers agreed 2023 was the right time to introduce this change alongside moving NAPLAN to March. Proficiency standards provide clear information on student achievement. They are set at a challenging but reasonable level expected for the child at the time of NAPLAN testing, based mainly on what has been taught in previous years of schooling.  

There are 4 proficiency levels:  

• Exceeding: The student’s result exceeds  expectations at the time of testing. 
• Strong: The student’s result meets challenging but  reasonable expectations at the time of testing.  
• Developing: The student’s result indicates that they are working towards expectations at the time of testing. 
• Needs additional support: The student’s result indicates that they are not achieving the learning outcomes expected at the time of testing. They are likely to need additional support to progress satisfactorily. 

What NAPLAN assesses has not changed. Page 4 of the individual student report provides a more detailed summary about what students know and can do within each of the proficiency levels. Further information is available at www.nap.edu.au. 

Mrs Cate Brennan

Deputy Principal Religious Education